'Social pioneer': Maud Davies conducted a sociological study of her home village after returning from the London School of Economics

The scandalous observations of a social pioneer who documented the 'moral lapses' of neighbours in her rural village have been revealed a century after her death.

Graduate Maud Davies, 29, described villagers in Corsley, Wiltshire, as 'rather rough' and a 'dirty lot' in her sociological study, prompting her mortified neighbours to try and block the paper from being published.

Ms Davies' in-depth investigation includes details of everything from her neighbours' drinking habits to their personal hygiene, and notes how she considered reporting one couple over their 'dirty children'.

Ms Davies, who is likely to have
been the first girl from the area to attend university, embarked on the
study of her village in 1905 after returning from the London School of
Economics.

But her no-holds-barred report - in
which local children are described as 'rascals', 'slow', or 'lazy' -
caused outrage in Corsley.

Villagers,
fearing their identity would be revealed and their secrets laid bare,
lobbied the parish council in a bid to have Ms Davies' paper withdrawn
before it was sent to be published.

Now,
exactly 100 years after the sociologist's death, local historian John
Chandler has printed her forgotten paper for all to read.

He
said: 'The trouble was that, although she did not name them
individually, they found it easy to identify who she was describing.

'Her
frank comments about their drinking habits and moral lapses did not go
down well. The parish council tried to suppress and have it withdrawn.'

Ms Davies returned to Corsley in
1905 to embark on an in-depth investigation into the daily lives of
ordinary villagers, and was allowed into homes to record every detail of
their day-to-day survival.

In
one extract describing a market gardener and his wife she notes: 'Drank
a good deal of their profits, wife got so drunk she could hardly sit in
the cart.

'Frank': Maud Davies' forgotten paper on the hidden lives of villagers in Corsley, Wiltshire, has finally been published a century after her death

'Life in an English village': The sociologist laid bare the daily lives of Corsley villagers

'Seen one day in public at Frome
having glass of port - more than such people could afford,' wrote the
frank sociologist, who went on to investigate and expose British
prostitutes being trafficked to America and the West Indies.

In
another extract she describes a labourer, his wife and four children:
'Can't say much for them. Wife hard-working woman, but bad manager.

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'Not much of it [debt]. A poor lot, drink too much and don't pay. Dirty lot. Inspector has been down on the once or twice - woman keeps house so dirty.

'Dirty children. Noted family. Have been on point of reporting parents to Officer of Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

'Yet children wouldn't be so bad with careful training. Attendance [at school] bad, they take turns to come.'

Pioneer: The results of Ms Davies' groundbreaking study have now been published in paperback

Ms Davies divided more than 200 houses into six categories; family, probably income in money or kind, amount above or below primary poverty, general character, promptness in paying debts and thrift generally, school report.

The resulting book, 'Life in an English Village', took Maud more than five years to complete and even includes an hourly census of the numbers and types of people in the village's six pubs over a period

Mr Chandler, from Stroud, stumbled across the book in the 1970s while running a library in Wiltshire.

He said: 'Maud's book, though rare, was not completely suppressed, and has been valued and quoted by social historians for more than a century.

'Now there is a new edition of this fascinating document, edited by Dr Jane Howells and published as a paperback by Hobnob Press available for all to read.'

Ms Davies asked households to
complete a questionnaire during the winter months from 1905 to 1906 to
form the basis of her study.

She also sought reports 'as to the characteristics of the various households' and information on incomes.

The
publication of the paperback comes 100 years after the sociologist's
tragic and untimely death, when she was found decapitated on a London
Underground line.

Ms
Davies, then 37, had just returned from a sea voyage to the West Indies
and America investigating the 'white slave trade' which saw prostitutes
being trafficked from England.

There
were suspicions she had been murdered because she had discovered too
much, or had killed herself. Her inquest was sensationally reported in
the press.

The book is published by Hobnob Press and is available either online or in shops.